


lack of a better word

by ashkatom



Series: OLOHverse [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Post-Ascension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 00:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5144279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’ve spent most of your life handling new situations by yourself, painstakingly clawing your way to the correct path. It should have made you more resistant to failure, but all you learned was to avoid failure at all costs. Failure is Vriska, bloody and panicked and chanting her way through a monologue of a plan. It’s Aurthour, hurt by your childish rage, and the ever-present, choking fear that you’d do the same to Nepeta. It’s every bow you’ve ever built, and that tension under your fingers before you push too far and every hope you held silently crumbles. Rigid procedure and disavowing the things that push you have been the only way you’ve kept from - hurting, <i>destroying</i>, and now you’re left on your own, with no clues as to which procedures you should be following.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lack of a better word

**Author's Note:**

> Postcards from the [sideblog](http://www.onextendedvacation.tumblr.com). This prompt was "Equius' first day in R&D."

Despite the chill of the recycled air, you start sweating upon your first step into the largest space station you have ever seen the plans for, mostly because you’re confronted by an oliveblood barely green enough to qualify for the title. She barely comes up to your hip, reminds you uncomfortably of Nepeta, and only says, “You’re late,” before turning to walk away. Given that the crew of the courier, none of whom you spent much time socialising with, are only restocking before continuing onto their next assignment, you have little choice but to follow the oliveblood deeper into the halls that contain any hope of a future you dare to have.

You wipe your forehead nervously and take two long strides to catch up. “May I ask your name?” you say, more out of politeness and a desire to fill the conversational space than because you think it’s going to be necessary to know. If the patterns of your life hold true, you’ll fade into the background soon enough.

Your guide flicks a glance at you, frowning. “I have no idea why you’d want to.”

—

Research and Development is impressive. You’d never really considered the scale, the scope you worked with until you became better acquainted with Sollux - and thinking that name still sets off a wash of guilt through your body; you wipe the sweat off your forehead and push forward nonetheless. Sollux, and his life lived in the few blocks of a cramped hivestem that he called home, and the hungry way he took all the space you could offer him and made it his own. You never thought on the space given to you, spreading through rooms and designating them with purpose, filling them with everything you needed; your hive may as well have been limitless, when it came to what you needed. R&D is your hive writ on the scale of a moon, and as you follow your unnamed guide down hallways as wide as roads, you can see it’s as well arranged, despite the scale. Strips of lights in the floor and walls provide direction, although your guide doesn’t seem to need them. The halls are carefully gridded, everything even and featureless. The people you pass walk with purpose, some giving you curious looks.

 _They know who you are_ , you think, and bile rises in your throat. They know who you are, and they don’t know enough, at all - _you_ don’t know who you are, after being forced to look the results of your work in the eye with no option to flinch.

The cuts Aradia gave you are still healing, leaving you unable to wear your glasses. They sting whenever you start feeling guilty, reminding you that your guilt is useless despite how deep the pain goes.

“Here’s Administration,” your guide says, abruptly. Before you can respond, she gives you a look, shakes her head, and walks off, and by the time you’re done being surprised by her casual disregard of you, it would be uncouth and embarrassing to shout after her. 

You’ve spent most of your life handling new situations by yourself, painstakingly clawing your way to the correct path. It should have made you more resistant to failure, but all you learned was to avoid failure at all costs. Failure is Vriska, bloody and panicked and chanting her way through a monologue of a plan. It’s Aurthour, hurt by your childish rage, and the ever-present, choking fear that you’d do the same to Nepeta. It’s every bow you’ve ever built, and that tension under your fingers before you push too far and every hope you held silently crumbles. Rigid procedure and disavowing the things that push you have been the only way you’ve kept from - hurting, _destroying_ , and now you’re left on your own, with no clues as to which procedures you should be following.

The rational side of you knows that perfection is impossible for anyone to achieve, and chasing down a perfect solution to a problem with none was what landed you here. It still takes a long time for you to take the first step towards finding the part of Administration that you need. 

Your healing wounds sting even more when sweat drips into them.

—

“Hm,” the woman across from you says. The tone of her voice is blank, without judgement, as she looks at you, and all her lack of apparent opinion does is make you sweat more. She’s highblooded but not a seadweller, and not one of the Mirthful. Her face is carefully, completely blank - no facepaint, she abstains even from cosmetics - and her uniform is unadorned except for the stripes on her shoulder. “You are a parcel of trouble, kid.”

You swallow and don’t reply.

She picks up her tablet and begins idly scrolling through what you assume must be information on you. You’d found a lower-ranking Administrator, at first, and then when he’d looked up your name you were passed from Administrator to Administrator, ratcheting up the anxiety you’re barely holding in check. You’ve been given no name for this woman, but her office is private, her rank higher than you’d expected any Administrator’s to be, and her blood is a rich purple. She holds power here, and you were fast-tracked to her door.

“I was watching you after you took your aptitudes,” she tells you, swiping to a different document on her tablet. “We control our intake very tightly here, but talent like yours was worth keeping an eye on. Ah-” She finds something on her tablet and looks at you, her voice finally turned from neutral. “Maintenance?” she asks, disappointed and disapproving. “You would have wasted yourself on _Maintenance_?”

Your hands ball into fists, out of her field of view. _You would waste yourself as a Helmsman?_

“Well, I suppose it shows a willingness to do the dirty work,” she says, returning to her results. “And your psych eval did show some-” her eyes flick up to meet yours for the briefest moment before she returns to reading, “- _incompatibilities_ , with the way we do things around here.” She flips the tablet cover shut and puts it down, leaning back in her chair with one leg crossed over the other as she scrutinises you.

“At the beginning of my shift,” she says, austere and removed and everything you had ever expected a highblood to be, “I had three messages waiting for me.”

You go numb.

“I would have thought you were a good addition to R&D despite your psych eval before receiving those messages,” she continues. “You do good work, kid. I had plans for who I could partner you with in the labs. This station is nothing more than a cat’s-cradle balancing of smart people with problems, and-” a self-satisfied twitch of a smile, “-like everyone here, I am good at what I do. I could have made it work.” 

“I apologise,” you say to your knees, only louder than a hoarse whisper through a supernatural effort, “for inconveniencing you.”

She laughs, short and harsh. “That’s all you got to say for yourself? Not even gonna ask about the messages? Forget trouble, you are a _disaster_.” She’s silent a long moment, which you spend watching your fists tremble in your lap, then says, “Kid, look at me.” Despite the wording, it is very certainly an order, and you obey it without thinking. Her cold facade is gone, leaving a tired woman who is - not scrutinising, not examining, not _evaluating_. She’s just thoughtful, with a slight frown as she rolls the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. “One of the messages was from the Empress’ office, laying out what happened with you lot before you all Ascended.” She shrugs, slightly. “One was from the Empress, with very clear orders on what I’m supposed to do with you.”

“The last?” you ask, before you can stop yourself, hastily appending a, “Ma’am,” when one of her eyebrows is raised.

“The last,” she says, picking up her tablet and flicking the cover open again, “was from Sollux Captor, with a set of exhaustively-notated blueprints and a scan of his moirail’s body. There was also a note telling me that if I ever contacted him in future concerning development of the rig, he’d find a way to - let’s see \- shove my horns up my own ass while they were still attached to my head.”

Because you are in an office with a person who may or may not be deciding what happens with the rest of your future, you do not hide your face in your hands, even though you particularly want to.

“So,” she says, brisk. “We’re back at the beginning. You are a parcel of troubles.” She begins counting things off on her fingers. “From our information, you’re unstable, and that can only have gotten worse. You’re a political nightmare waiting to happen, between the Empress and the people she’s bringing into power. And people here are going to be constantly riding you over what exactly happened - I’m sure you can understand the problems inherent with that.” 

You surprise yourself by asking, “Are you going to cull me?”

She looks at you for a moment, eyes going wide, before she bursts into laughter. It’s long minutes until her giggling dies down and she wipes her eyes with a sleeve. “Kid, no. I have _carpet_ in this office.” A smile still on her face, she unlocks a drawer and reaches into it, pulling out a tablet. “Take a guess at how long I’ve had this job.”

You blink, then look at her, carefully. It’s difficult to tell age with trolls, doubly so with adults, and even moreso for highbloods. The colour in her horns is perhaps a little faded, the black of her lips not as deep as a new-moulted troll, her skin barely thin around her eyes. She has a faded scar across one cheek that points to more than a few post-adult moults under her belt. Highbloods, though. “Centuries?” you hazard, when it becomes clear that she won’t let you not answer.

Another self-satisfied grin. “I’ve had this job since R&D was a mess of warehouses planet-side.” Her grin widens into a true smile, one that is at least half smirk, and it reminds you uncomfortably of Vriska. “This station,” she says, sliding the tablet across to you, “is mine. The people on it are mine.” When you reach out to pick up the tablet, she pins it down with two fingers, giving you a warning look. “I’m nook-deep in everything that goes on here, kid, and a _lot_ of unsavoury shit goes on here. I keep people in line who make you look like an innocent little fresh-hatched grub by comparison. I do it because I watched this place grow, and I know exactly how much the people here need it. This place is _mine_.”

You nod, and try to pretend that you aren’t terrified. 

“I think it could be yours, too,” she says, after a moment of letting her words sink in. “Like I said: I was keeping an eye on you.” Her expression goes flat, fearsome. “You’ll learn what you need to learn here; I can guarantee that. But if you don’t think you can put R&D first - and I mean _all_ of R &D, kid - you need to self-select out now.” Her eyes are cold, deep. “You’re a pushover in the middle of a moral crisis. The balance here…” She shakes her head. “You aren’t going to be able to please everyone, and you just learned how disastrous trying can be.”

“What-” you say, and cough when your voice cracks. “What would self-selecting out entail?”

The Administrator draws two fingers across her throat. “Plenty of blocks without carpet.” Her words are almost sympathetic. “I tell the Empress that you met with an unfortunate accident. The Empire keeps going.”

Your hands are sweaty. All of you, really, but your hands most of all. After seeing Sollux’s Ancestor in the wires, a perversion of the worst fear you held, you were prepared to die. Your prevarication due to this fear was selfish, and ill-considered, and led you to commit inexcusable acts. Confronting it has told you more about yourself than you particularly cared to know.

Sending you here was an act to facilitate your atonement. To teach you what was needed, rather than provide an avenue where you could give up. So, despite yourself, you swallow and say, “And staying?”

The Administrator smiles, and releases the tablet. You don’t take it immediately. “You get timeshare in a lab. I was going to put you in the Robotics sector - it shares a border with Helming Development, and I can tell you that a few people there want to talk to you. Heads of sectors control funding, so you’ll have to propose projects to them. Usually we have new residents shadow someone in their sector for a sweep or so before proposing any projects, but…” She unlocks the tablet in front of you, and your heart seizes at the familiar handwriting. “Captor was very clear that this work should be released to you only.”

 _Cruel_ , you think, distantly, picking up the tablet and sliding your thumb over the screen. Your heart breaking anew at handwriting; pathetic. He knew that you wouldn’t be able to sit by as someone else made a hash of his - of your original blueprints, and these developments and notations are the last piece of him you expect you’ll ever see. The option to fail his expectations is there, of course. It will only say some unsavoury things about you, should you fail.

You turn off the screen and put the tablet in your lap. There may not be much you can do to remove the harm your actions caused, but the direction of the future of the Empire has been placed in your hands, as laughable as that concept is given everything that just took place. Still, whether you fail or not matters little, now; there will always be someone to continue the project. The part that matters is what you _do._ Nepeta had been very clear, on that point.

“It also means,” she says, as if you didn’t just fall apart in front of her, “that you _join R &D_.” She leans back in her chair again. “You get the company of people who are, without a doubt, more brilliant than you. You get access to the most varied resource base in the Empire, planet-side or not. You get a private block, three square meals, regular medical and psychological checkups, and the knowledge that, in some small way, the Empire depends on your continued existence.” The lightness fades from her voice. “And you get me. Commit to R&D and you become mine, just like the rest of the station, and I am _very_ experienced at not caring about political ramifications. I don’t care if the Empire bays for your blood. I don’t care if the Empress shows up at the door with an army. I have gone toe-to-toe with the Empire for R&D before, kid, and I will do it again, and for what you could do for this place?” She shakes her head. “I’m not willing to take you on if you’re here to stir up more trouble than you’re worth, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’m _certainly_  not squandering your knowledge on political bullshit.”

You lower your eyes instinctually, your heart thumping in your chest. This, _this_ was what you always wanted from the natural order of the haemospectrum, and as disabused as you are of the haemospectrum being the last word in temperament, in behaviour, part of you is still pathetically grateful to find it here. “The risk I represent-” you say, before you can give into the weakness of not saying anything and hiding behind her.

She gets up and walks around her desk to crouch by your chair, hands on your knees. “Kid,” she says, quiet and reassuring in a way that you do not deserve, “do you know how many of you I’ve had through this office, convinced that they’ve brought about the end of the world?” When you don’t answer - _can’t_ answer, she smiles up at you a little. “You think I’m weird and protective? Every single person here would die for R &D, because it’s the only place they belong. Give it a sweep and you’ll do the same. We’ve all made bad decisions. We’ve all hurt the people we love, we all have regrets, and this is where we’ve ended up. We help each other be better. And I’m here to make sure that you have everything you need to do what you think is needful. Give it a chance.” She claps a hand on your shoulder as she stands up again. “Give _yourself_ a chance.”

You nod, because you can’t do anything else.

“Maps are on your tablet with your allocations marked,” she says, picking her own back up as she reclines in her chair, feet on her desk. “Mind the red-shaded areas. I only stick my neck out for people who aren’t dumb enough to walk around in hazard zones.”

You look at the nameplate beside her door on your way out, ashamed you didn’t earlier. It has no title, nor is it set apart from any of the other nameplates in the Administration sector by material. Only one name is carved into it, but you imagine that, despite the size of R&D, any more specific identification is unnecessary. 

_Calwen_ , you fix in your memory, and set to finding your block in order to have a private meltdown that has been a long time coming.

—

Your block is small enough that you can cross it in three steps. You sit on the edge of your recuperacoon and give into the urge to put your head in your hands, now that nobody except yourself can fault you for your weakness. No tears fall into your hands, no rage flares up and pilots your body into destroying something. There is only you, the guilt rattling in your head, and the opposing certainties that you neither deserve the place you’ve found here nor do you deserve anything better.

The guilt subsides. It will be ever-present, of course; twinges of memory, Sollux Captor’s handwriting, the work that you will do night after night, but - for all that you are not accustomed to failure, you’re discovering that existence continues after the incident occurs, no matter how hard you hold to the moment.

You cross to the small desk in your block and set your tablet in the dock there, opening the station handbook as you sit, carefully, in the bare-bones metal seat provided. With nothing else to do, and no real desire to do anything else, you let existence continue.


End file.
